Apple's low cost and easy to use networking from 1985 (Mini Mail Call #10)

[@MatroxMillennium]

Hi Adrian! That price tag is the tag that the thrift store stuck on the packaging, hence is what I paid for the adapter before sending it to you. :)

[@matthewbriggs9137]

There appeared to be a white sticker underneath the thrift store one..

[@mikel6989]

thanks mike!

[@katho8472]

@@matthewbriggs9137 I saw that too. Maybe you can look under there and see the original price, Adrian? :)

[@levimaaia]

My neighbor friend and I set up an AppleTalk network across two blocks. Using the same adapters and a switch box between them and our printers, we ran a phone line across four backyards and over the street in the trees. We were able to chat and share programs between our two Macs in the early to mid 90s.

[@krnlg]

I love how simple-yet-functional the terminator is. Not even a case over the resistor :)

[@Okurka.]

@@slightlyevolved Brown-Red-Brown, so 120 Ohm.

[@wastelandwanderer3883]

I'm pretty sure the terminators on ethernet networks using coax cables just used a bayonet connector with a 50 or 75 ohms resistor (can't quite remember which one it was) and that you could make your own.

[@Stjaernljus]

What i find a bit funny is that internally Apple used PhoneNet adapters for AppleTalk due to their own cabling not being rated to be run through walls, but phonewire was.

[@SomeMorganSomewhere]

Yeah, my primary school had phone cabling tacked all over the outside of the building for the (one) mac in each classroom.

[@alexdhall]

In the early 2000s I got to mess around with a old middle school lab full of Macintosh LC IIs and a single Mac classic II. All networked via PhoneNet adapters....

[@MichaelConnolly3000]

I found this video on the exact same day my own PhoneNET adapters showed up from eBay. Can't wait to hook up my Powerbooks and play around, awesome video!

[@cumilyeon]

I used to manage such a network back in highschool. I live how easy it worked. We had to deploy fonts in multiple rooms so the network made things so simple.

[@andyintex]

I worked at Kinko's in the late 80s and 90s, Apple talk was amazing, and oh those Laserwriter II NTX's. Great memories.

[@tstahlfsu]

Oh God. Those Laserwriters were a nightmare to work on. This coming from an old Apple tech that is certified to repair them. Haha. They were all Canon under the hood.

[@DavePoo]

20:55 - classic MacOS used co-operative multitasking en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_multitasking , which isn't used on modern OS (and wasn't used on Amiga OS!), the problem with it is that any application that currently has control is responsible for giving it up before any other application can have control. It seems to me like when AppleTalk is active, it doesn't know that you are trying to use the UI and just gives up control when it feels like it. The real big problem with this type of multitasking is if one application crashes or hangs, the whole system hangs.

[@jazbell7]

That description of Appletalk is exactly correct. I was the "phone guy" at a computer system development office and I patched a number of Apple devices around using the "second pair" to each phone. It always worked perfectly. The hardest part of that job was keeping accurate records of the "patches" on the phone MDF. (Main Distribution Frame)

[@patprop74]

Reminds me of laplink we use to use back when we had to make a cable to get it to work but once it worked it was great for local land connection

[@tstahlfsu]

Plus PC Anywhere! Lol

[@MrSatellitehead]

Well Hello to you too. Great video Adrian. Retrobrite that packaging for testing purpose.

[@BrianRRenfro]

I have actually tried and on the thin, clear plastic they use the yellow (at least in my experience) goes all the way through :(

[@BrianRRenfro]

And someone is gonna ask why I tried it. I took an old blister pack from a thermostat that had been hanging in a store window for like 10 years and tried. I wanted to try the process out before doing an old Zenith Supersport "laptop" It didn't do a thing. Then just went ahead and tossed the laptop in the tub and it worked fine.

[@marksterling8286]

I remember this we used Farallon Computing adaptors in the office over cat3 back to a bunch of Farallon 12 port hubs. We also had a Mac running a wired Apple talk to Ethernet bridge/gateway and then an Ethernet to token ring bridge(not router) so the Mac’s could connect to the icl mainframe.

[@wotsac]

Farallon has a bunch of interesting stuff. I've got a couple of AppleTalk compatible Ethernet dongles that hang off the serial port and have two RJ45 jacks to daisy chain Ethernet. Drivers (not 32 bit clean) allow speeds up to 1mbit, without drivers it goes at 250kbit, which is still not bad when you're using floppy disks.

[@BigMacIIx]

Asanté had a really great "dumb" LocalTalk to 10Base-T bridge, it was flawless, until I burned mine....

[@wotsac]

@@BigMacIIx That one might be living somewhere in my closet (in its original box) as well, but I moved, and then I got married, and then the world went to hell...

[@BigMacIIx]

@@wotsac Well my HP DeskJet 500 and Mac IIx are long gone now... I miss those old days, messing around with ResEdit and Hypercard...

[@CiscoWes]

Back in the early '90s, I ran several phonenet connectors in between a bunch of Macs and printers in an elementary school. The teachers could share programs, print on printers that were in other rooms (some only had B&W and some had color). I also found a chat program so the kids could chat to each other from different locations. I had simple 4 conductor solid copper telephone wire all up and down the halls and into a fairly large school. It worked fine. Of course it wasn't fast at all, but perfect for chatting, sharing programs and printing. The kids had a blast with it. And it wasn't very expensive since I used the phonenet connectors and simple telephone wire.

[@dhpbear2]

The ModuNet II System was bought at "Yellow HomeGoods All" ;) (2:26)

[@manueldi_77]

Go to visit my local computer museum? No way. Adrian's Digital Basement is the way to go. As always a great episode.

[@lbrentevans]

I remember from elementary school that there was a Mac II (or something similar, this would have been between 88 and 90) networked to all of the II, II+, IIs, and IIgs systems in the lab, and would serve programs out, presumably through some sort of Appletalk cards in the II machines. I remember having to load programs in shifts because only a certain number could load at once. There were also ImageWriter IIs on that network, and I remember the PhoneNet adapters. It would be neat to see an example of how that might have been set up.

[@nebular-nerd]

Next up: PhoneNET Adapter teardown and clone. Then we can watch as you build a massive AdrianNET of all your Macs 😊

[@Peter_S_]

There was almost nothing inside a PhoneNet connector. They had tiny isolation transformers made by Pulse Engineering that were not much larger than a DIP-8 and contained an extra pair of 1K resistors, plus a modular connector. I want to say the transformer was marked PE-3590 but it's been a long time. I'll bet there was also an analog of a type Y cap in there but that's a guess. The circuit board had a square of traces hooked to ground that encircled the network connections in case of static HV on the network.

[@68f100ranger]

I have fond memories of Appletalk. In grade school and middle school our district was Apple exclusive. I remember around the 7th grade becoming good friends with the computer lab teacher and starting a computer club. We were responsible for keeping all of the systems and printers functioning. It was great getting pulled out of class to go setup a new printer or wipe a teachers hard drive. I don't remember what brand adapters we had for Apple talk, but it was not self terminating. I remember the dongles having chains (like the kind banks used to use to keep people from stealing the pens) attached with the termination plug crimped on. If they were ever missing though we had to use the plugs with the resistor in it like your video. Our lab teacher used to make them himself so we always had them when they would misteriously go missing. Kids would pull them out so teachers couldn't print tests or assignments etc... I do remember naming printers was a bit difficult, and finding the specific printer you just hooked up was a bit of a pain. Sometimes you would have to go classroom to classroom to find out where your test print came out so you could map out the network. Unfortunately the printers were pretty unreliable so they got swapped out quite frequently. It was funny when a teacher got a new printer, but the computer remembered the old printer. It was hilarious watching the teacher hunt for there stuff they just printed. When I went to high school we were exclusively pc, so my time with Mac was over. Thanks for the video.

[@jasonmiller3167]

Seriously, who are the jerks who vote down on Adrian's videos?? Come on!! Consistently fun to watch mail calls and project videos!!

[@barthonhoff5547]

This was how I connected my Apple II GS to my Mac Classic to play games, until I got a SCSI controller for my Apple II GS. Also I used to connect my Applewriter and HP laserprinter. Later on I was able to print from my Performa 630 in the kitchen on my printers. Really cool!

[@hazardsoftech]

You call it 'mini' to keep expectations low and then blow us away with loads of fun content.

[@minty_Joe]

Just to clarify, the cabling and connections (aka hardware) for this type of networking is called "LocalTalk". The software protocol language that the devices use to identify and communicate is called "AppleTalk". This networking scheme, like SCSI, is very chatty. Every packet of data transmitted contains a confirmation of the machine's existence, it's ID and various other things. This is one reason why there is a need for terminating resistors installed at the far ends of the chain; without those terminators, you would get a lot of reflective echoes sent down the line and would confuse each machine connected as to what the real message sent was. For being an inexpensive network type, it worked, although very slow. And, yes, through use of special telephone adapters (splitters designed for 2nd phone line installations) your telephone and LocalTalk network could be used inside your house, as long as you had just one subscribed phone line (The yellow and black wires would be used for LocalTalk while red and green are for the telephone.). I remember the public school I went to (1992-1998), it was pretty well set as far as computers go. Each teacher had either an Apple IIgs or Mac LCII/III/475 as their computer. Some individual classrooms had a handful of IIgs systems. They did have one room that was all Apple IIe's. The library had 5 LCII or III's. They also had another computer lab filled with Macs; LCII, LCIII and LC475's. That teacher had her own IIci and another one as a print server. She also had 3 ImageWriter II, 2 LaserWriter (I don't remember the model numbers) and 1 StryleWriter (again, model number slips my mind). ALL of these computers were linked together to some degree with LocalTalk and Farallon's PhoneNet adapters. Most of the Macs (except the teachers) ran At Ease as the home login screen. I guess this was supposed to prevent kids from tampering with the Finder; just make it basic enough that kids won't go exploring too far. Talk about slow. In the Mac lab, imagine 30 LCII/III/475's sending print jobs to any available printer at once. It took a long time; the wait was almost 20 minutes or more before your hard copy was printed. It got much worse if someone was sharing their file across the network; that would chew up more bandwidth. I guess by 1996, they started to switch over to Ethernet networking and brand new Windows 95 PCs. The school figured the budget for upgrading and replacing the aging computers would be more economical if they went with PCs instead of Macs (which, at the time, was true). I only got to see a small bit of the changes before I graduated high school, as I had Library Assistant as one of my classes in my final year (Easy A+!). I have no idea what their computer layout is now. I haven't stepped foot in that building in over 20 years. They also turned it into a 4th-8th grade campus and started breaking ground on a new high school building when I graduated.

[@minty_Joe]

"BMUG" was the Berkeley Mac Users Group.

[@StevenStaton]

I wired my (then) new home with PhoneNet cable in 1989, while it was under construction. The cables and wall sockets (RJ-11) are still there ;-).

[@markm0000]

The cool part is you could get decent Ethernet transfer speeds just off all that 4 wire phone cable at 100Base-TX. You need new RJ45 wall plates with a cheap hub in each room to connect them all together. It should be fast enough for watching movies around the house off a file server and browsing the web.

[@Decco6306]

That networking was amazingly advanced for its time wow

[@AlexStypik]

OMG, that JVC shortwave boombox on your t-shirt, I have one on the shelf. Classic. Used the blast that in my dorm room.

[@Dave01Rhodes]

One of the driving factors behind AppleTalk was the LaserWriter. Those printers were so expensive, most offices couldn’t afford to buy one for every computer. But hey, now with AppleTalk, you can network all the computers in your office and they can all share the LaserWriter!

[@HeffeJeffe78]

I have such fond memories of working with AppleTalk in my youth. It was such an easy way to get a network up and going.

[@chemmerling]

The mouse issue is both CPU and Hard Drive intensive. The mouse pointer used to freak out with a hard drive that had bad sectors when trying to read from it. Looks like you could use a Farallon StarController to test out. Or the StarController EN with an AUI connector for 10-base ethernet.

[@gallgreg]

What a coincidence!! I just (this week!) bought 5 new-in-box Phone-Net connectors off of eBay, longing to network my old Mac's! THANKS FOR THE COOL VIDEO, ADRIAN!!

[@EvilFranky]

AppleTalk compatible interfaces were made available on some higher end Atari computer platforms in the 90's.

[@nbntelevision1]

I have a LocalTalk AppleTalk network installed in my house (with DIN connectors). I can still do email and surf on my Mac Plus and SE, even share files with modern computers on the network. It’s pretty amazing something like this can pass IP packets and be such old tech.

[@resneptacle]

Email? Which provider supports sending and receiving emails without encryption, as I assume no Mac of that age is capable of any semi modern encryption methods?

[@nbntelevision1]

JonasLue I use an email client via an OS 9 server that can pass both LocalTalk and IP packets. I can also use mail via the BSD terminal on the newer macs, accessed locally via the OS 9 server.

[@pete3897]

@NBNTelevision if you've got DIN-plugs on the ends of the wires that go between the dongles (rather than RJ12 style phone connectors) then I think you actually have a genuine 'Appletalk' network rather than a Localtalk Appletalk network - something I'd be proud of :) (localtalk was the cheap clone). EDIT - looking at @Dark Winter's 'Trivia of the day' in the comments, maybe I have that wrong and you do have Localtalk and it was PhoneNet that was the cheap clone. Sorry! It was long ago...)

[@NJRoadfan]

@@resneptacle Setup an STunnel proxy and the old clients can connect fine. POP3, SMTP, and IMAP have been around for a LONG time.

[@nbntelevision1]

Pete Mundy PhoneNet was the clone. LocalTalk is the physical layer as established by Apple. AppleTalk is the protocol over the wires. You’re close. If you buy the Apple branded din connectors, they say LocalTalk on the box.

[@Jonoth]

Reminds me of Allen Bradley data highway + and Profibus. Serial type connection and the need for a termination resistor!

[@bobblum5973]

I think Allen Bradley used either RS-422 or RS-485 balanced differential signals, similar to these LocalTalk and PhoneNet connections, although I think these used isolating transformers to block any potential telephone line DC from reaching the Macs. BitBus was another machine tool control communications standard I used back in the '80s & '90s.

[@davecollins195]

Adrian, I work as a low voltage tech I have a customer who does old media recovery and has a few Mac classics with apple talk networking between two locations in his shop and a old plotter. This is the only way to network these 3 legacy devices. The phones and computers share 1 peice of cat3 between those locations and the apple talk pairs are bridged from one side to the other of the r66 blocks. Never fully understood how all this works, how neat!

[@ncot_tech]

Apple networks were cool. At school we had a room of Mac classics all connected to a printer. When I went to college we had a campus wide Mac network with LCii machines. Later in my first job there was an office down the corridor to ours who had some Macs that were networked and wanted to connect them to their PCs, so we had to set up a Linux machine running the Dave file sharing tools and Samba for them.

[@PaulinesPastimes]

Wow, now I know why a friend of mine used to rave about how easy it was to network Apple computers back in the 90's. I love the way you can daisy chain it. Great fun.

[@gcewing]

The flashing arrows bring back memories! There was an application-launching utility called Apollo that displayed its icon -- a constellation of stars -- in the same spot, and the arrows clashed with it in an ugly way. So I tracked down the resource containing the image for the arrows and tweaked it so that it made the stars twinkle.

[@frugalprepper]

Brings back the memories. I took on a customer in the 90's that had a bunch of Apples, using a program called File Maker Pro, which held a database of all kinds of carbide cutter bits that they manufactured. The had to share files with PC's, so they had a Novell Netware server with and apple talk card and a ethernet card, that allowed the Mac's and PC's to share a common drive.

[@kjamison5951]

I set up a backbone that ran across three stories of a high school. It was terminate sat either end of the backbone. I had it set up to be able to print to a variety of laser and inkjet printers and share files. I really wanted to expand it to transmit to other buildings but never found the appropriate hardware to do it. Still, I had phone cable running through walls and ceilings and the backbone allowed for connectors to be plugged in or out which didn’t collapse the network.

[@homelate1306]

They do blinky blinky 😀 Great video Adrian!

[@rednight2476]

I used to work in a Mac shop and we used to use drop-boxes which was just a folder set as write only that where used to give out files for people to work on. There are also a number of fun programs using AppleTalk. A program called Energizer Bunny was particularly well known. Also a lot of old Mac games supports Appletalk, I used to play Spectre death matches quite a lot.

[@alerey4363]

Talking about terminators, I remember seeing one resistor soldered to an RJ-11 plug in some localtalk networks; but this serial network was slow as molasses; by that time there were 10B2 (thin coax) Ethernets, which was like speed of light compared to the serial adapters

[@johnmerryman1825]

Great blast from the past. I remember setting up a PhoneNet network with our mac LCs as a kid. Worked great over the extra pair of phone wire in the walls and wow it was so easy to use.

[@LtKernelPanic]

Oh man that brings back memories. I also used Farallon's PhoneNet adapters back in the day and they were great. I used them with an Asante AsanteTalk Ethernet to LoacalTalk bridge when I got newer macs so I could use my old Laser Writer 4/600 PS until I was finally forced to upgrade to a version of OS X that no longer supported AppleTalk. Before I got my Laser Writer I had to turn AT off so I could print to our Style Writer. It took forever for file sharing to turn off and back on that I found an extension that made a virtual serial port that I could switch AT to so I could leave file sharing on, use the printer port to print from then switch it back to the networking port when done. Still have them with my vintage Macs somewhere.

[@glonch]

I set this up at a friend's house in the late 80s. Use the second pair in the house phone cabling and was able to get two Macs and two printers networked. It was very slick. No more sneakernet for them.

[@Francois_L_7933]

1984: Hey! setting up a network and copying files over it is as easy as drag & drop. 2020: Been trying to copy files over the network from a Linux box to a Windows 10 machine... after 2 hours I gave up and just used a thumb drive. 🤔

[@MrMarci878]

I remember setting up SMB shares on my NAS for my computers. I dont want to do it again.

[@RobA500]

My Linux machine just connects to a Windows network with a simple click on a network icon. Same for a SMB NAS drive, though I’ve opted to mount my NAS drive at boot using Linux network rather than use Windows network system with a simple line added to fstab.

[@gabest4]

Windows is always ahead one version of the SMB protocol and it disables the older ones with security holes.

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

This is pretty funny! And you are so right. :-)

[@pmgodfrey]

I have three QNAP nas boxes. They don't like to play well with any of my Mac machines...it's horribly slow.

[@robertcourtemanche9185]

I used to have a network using these back in the late 90s and the boxes seemed interchangeable. I also used it with an adapter for an old printer that couldn’t use Ethernet for several years until it finally died.

[@toothrobber8076]

In one of my first jobs, I supported Apple Talk networks linking them to the local Ethernet. Thanks for the good memories

[@garthhowe297]

I seem to remember studying for my NT MCSE, and there was a whole section on Appletalk. I skipped that section, as I doubted (correctly) that I would ever use it, and fortunately I think there were only a couple of questions about it. Back then I lived in the world of Arcnet, and Thin Ethernet mostly.

[@stephenpalmer9375]

yeah, same experience really. Apple wasn't really a thing here in the UK outside of some University Faculities, but it popped up on those early NT MCSE exams. However, before this my company used a similar serial based concept - there was a thick ethernet trunk under the floor, which we tapped into using thin ethernet to what amounted to serial repeater boxes - and we would connect groups of 4 PCs to these. It was fine for Terminal Emulation and early X.400 email, and we even were connecting Windows 3.11 systems that way. Eventually we just replaced it all with RJ-45 cabling, and left it all under the floor.

[@NJRoadfan]

The physical RS-422/SDLC network was renamed "LocalTalk" in later years to avoid confusion. Whats neat is if you have a LocalTalk-to-Ethernet bridge, you can print to any modern HP JetDirect equipped printer with Postscript using the LaserWriter driver (v6.0 and later even support color).

[@MacCrafter707]

I worked for Trader Publishing in the early 90's doing desktop publishing. We had a Macintosh Plus on the network with a Macintosh IIci (my work machine). Whenever someone did copy on the Plus my computer was nearly unuseable while they were copying files back and forth.

[@seanlynchbp]

That's cool I always wondered how easy it was to set up apple talk. It was used heavily in school when I was a kid. Grate video looking forward to more videos of this technology

[@johnmcl7]

I was genuinely amazed at that file transfer which seems incredible for the age of the machines. We had a room of similar Apples networked at school which seemed to work fine with another room of network Acorn Archimedes, the Archimedes however were replaced by Apple Performas in the mid 90's and their network setup seemed incredibly unreliable. Was that just a bad set up or did Apple have a newer networking system which didn't work as well? What I love about these sorts of videos is being able to start to understand the technology I used when I was younger which I didn't really have a clue about beyond basic user functionality

[@bobblum5973]

AppleTalk over phone lines or CAT 3 wiring ("LocalTalk") is still susceptible to electrical interference to some extent. That means a poor wiring job or layout may still have issues. I supported it at work, and had one case where the wiring had been run alongside a large fluorescent light fixture in the ceiling, too close to the ballast transformer. Relocating it helped tremendously.

[@AaronHuslage]

I once wired up a whole office with AppleTalk and PhoneNET. We had the phone lines on one pair, and PhoneNET on the other. Everything eventually had TCP/IP on it and we had a router that would bridge the network over to a T1 line. That was a lot of fun.

[@Aruneh]

Wow, I find old networking to be very fascinating, so cool to see this!

[@PatrickDunn13078]

Hi Adrian, at our company we used Appletalk Networking extensively in our little log cabin office. Up in the attic were feet of cris-crossing phone cable to connect the various macs and printers. We also used a program called NetStickies that let us send a local message that would pop up on the computer screen you send it to - like if I sent a note to a co-worker about something. It was great, Appletalk was cool because of the simplicity and power.

[@DerekWitt]

Hello from Kansas here too. :) I used to have a Mac 6100 pizza box that had one of those Ethernet pigtail adapters. I think it connected to the same port as your AppleTalk one. Mac OS 8.5 connected to my LAN quite nicely with that adapter.

[@DrDavesDiversions]

Hi Adrian fun throwback content to PhoneNET! As a student assistant in 1990, I wired.a Mac lab, having tens of machines and a printer in our college's new dorm, using Farallon PhoneNET and the trunk topology (from the book) with one continuous pair of copper wires running from one wall jack through the next, and so on. We had been using PhoneNET for years, widely across the campus, but not in that topology. In subsequent years, I heard (loudly) that the subsequent computer lab assistants were *not* happy with my choice. :) A problem at any wall jack under the desks could break the network, as opposed to.a star topology.

[@DrDavesDiversions]

For performance reasons, we used a more powerful Mac, like an SE/30, as the server.

[@parrottm76262]

And you showed exactly why we didn't install an Appletalk network at my job site during the day. The slowdown killed productivity, so we gave the users everything they needed to perform 'sneakernet' connections. Ha!

[@StevenSmyth]

BMUG was the Boston Macintosh User Group. I "managed" the PhoneNet network at my office. When I installed it, I had one server (a IIcx) and four clients, an SE/30, two IIsi's, and a LaserWriter II NT. I didn't daisy chain them, because I didn't have enough phone wire, I used a simple one in-four out phone splitter, that I didn't think would work. It did and we limped along for a couple of years like that, until we got Power Macs with built in Ethernet. We got a Farallon Ethernet to AppleTalk hub and had to use Farallon's Etherwave adapters, which were AAUI to RJ-45 for some of the Power Macs (we had about 5 7100's and an 8100). Yes, AppleTalk was slow over any other topology other than Ethernet, and I still network my Power Mac G4 and Power Mac G3 with it because it just works.

[@BollingHolt]

So cool! I've never seen AppleTalk in action before.

[@steven-vn9ui]

I could never be accused of being an Apple fan but that was so simple, especially for the time. Quite impressed actually

[@stevenclark2188]

Appleserial started disappearing after USB came on the scene with the iMac. But you could still buy Appleserial printers for many years after to support older setups. I remember Epson keeping around a model, I think it was the Stylus Color 740 until about 2000/2001 to support those machines.

[@jammi__]

Firstly, AppleTalk refers to the software. LocalTalk is the name for it implemented over RS422/485. EtherTalk is the name of it over Ethernet. These "Phonenet" type of tranceivers are fully compatible with the Apple MiniDIN ones, the difference is just the connectors they use. Back in the day, I'd splice the AppleTalk ones and wire them up with the PhoneNet cables or sometimes just cutting some cheap telephone extension cord to get longer runs of them.

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Original AppleTalk adapters used 3 wires though and PhoneNet only use 2 -- so while you could use 3 wires from a phone cable on Original appletalk, it doesn't seem to be identical unless you could just leave the 3rd ground pin disconnected on original AppleTalk adapters and it would still work?

[@jammi__]

@@adriansdigitalbasement IIRC it worked just fine with two; the shield was not really needed on the Apple wires. Also as irrelevant information we had 3-wired double insulated phone wires here in Finland, so the RJ11 ends were at least as proprietary as MiniDIN.

[@directrix101]

I was expecting a T-1000 but the jack with the resistor was cool too.

[@darkwinter6028]

Trivia of the day: AppleTalk was the network transport protocol; AppleShare was the file sharing protocol running on top of AppleTalk; LocalTalk was Apple’s 3-pin mini-DIN based networking hardware; PhoneNet was Farallon’s 4P4C modular connector based networking hardware, and EtherTalk was AppleTalk running on Ethernet (as a peer to IP and other protocols like IP/X).

[@RetroViator]

Thank you. It is worth pointing out that AppleTalk is the network protocol and LocalTalk is the network topography. That is often confused. Back in the day, I was the network admin for a 300-500 node AppleTalk network (using LocalTalk and EtherTalk). The network gear was largely Farallon StarControllers and GatorBox routers. I spent years installing and troubleshooting PhoneNet connections. I moved the network to a standard Ethernet network in the mid ‘90s.

[@kargaroc386]

Its almost certainly interrupt driven, which of course would both interrupt the CPU and steal processing time away from drawing the (software rendered) screen, and would be asynchronous.

[@arjanvanraaij8440]

Just remember me using interserv and interlink on AT's and XT's to install Dos on to there hard drive's. the paralel nullmodem cable was faster then the serial one.

[@Zeem4]

I've had Appletalk networking running over actual Apple adapters (and some knock-offs that look identical but without the Apple logo), but I have precisely one PhoneNet adapter (with terminator), so I haven't managed to get that one running. The most exciting thing I ever got working over AppleTalk was accessing the contents of a file share on a Linux server on a Mac Plus, using a Powerbook 5300 running the LocalTalk Bridge software to connect the AppleTalk and Ethernet networks together. It was surprisingly easy to get working.

[@jercos]

An Apple printer cable is a serial loopback cable (all Apple serial ports use the same tx/rx pins, so all Apple cables crossed over rx and tx), and the link functions with only the receiver IC's impedance (as high as 12k ohm) on sufficiently short, stub-free links. With two machines on the same desk, a phonenet adapter can often be bypassed completely.

[@eben_the_great]

When I dealt with PhoneNet (I adminned my college's Mac lab in the early 90s), I was taught that AppleTalk was the protocol, which could be over Ethernet or whatever, and LocalTalk was Apple's serial-port version of it. PhoneNet replaced LocalTalk hardware.

[@akhilaryappatt]

that yellowed packaging is nostalgic

[@andycooper1684]

Another great video Adrian - thanks. Convergent Technologies introduced sophisticated RS422 networking (called clustering) for their Advanced Work Station (AWS) systems in 1982. I had the pleasure of working with those systems and the excellent CTOS operating system before PCs took over the world :-(.

[@cll1out]

The elementary school I went to was built in 1994 and everywhere you’d normally find a Ethernet Jack they also wired 2 phone jacks. I later became sysadmin at that school and found out a few things. Ethernet was usable just in time for when the school opened so they installed proper RJ45 1Mbit or 10Mbit NICs in whatever couple dozen macs they had at the time and went with that. I always thought the phone jacks were to maintain the ability for dialup if certain staff needed it. The phone jacks had cat5 wire run to the phone closet but were never wired in as their PBX could have never handled so many extra connections anyway. Now after watching your video I realize during the design phase they probably planned to connect all their macs via PhoneNets. I even recall seeing those phonenets in a box somewhere and some of those goofy terminators but never realized the bigger picture.

[@MrGeekGamer]

This is really cool. I really want some of these adapters for the pair of Macs that I have, without resorting to floppies.

[@csudsuindustries]

I sent over a handful of the AppleTalk/PhoneNet connectors not long ago so you can grow your network.

[@shibolinemress8913]

Adrian, I love that shirt! I'm pretty sure I had that same boombox in high school!

[@greybush1079]

Binge Watching !! Thx For the Great Content

[@BalooUriza]

Yellow and black were also used for phones, the second line in houses.

[@St0rmcrash]

Indeed, though since most people didn't have two line service it meant that more often than not the second pair was just sitting there unused, in which case a system like this is a very clever way to put idle copper to work

[@ZiggyTheHamster]

In elementary school, we used AppleTalk to network boot a lab of IIGSes, which then let us run any of the games from the MECC catalog. I wonder if this was all stock software or if it was something special.

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Oh that sounds pretty cool. I know basically nothing about AppleTalk on the IIgs, so really need to dig into that some more.

[@DeetexSeraphine]

Not to be confused with Macintalk, the awesome speech synthesizer reused for the AutoPilot in Wall-E... It's word, I remember AppleTalk still being installed with iTunes under windows all the way up to the 2010s.

[@omega9380]

Just for information purposes, that was a Goodwill price tag :)

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Ah not here -- our tags say Goodwill on them. Must be a regional thing.

[@Bob3519]

Around 1995/96 I had a Power Mac 8500 a Mac Plus and an Appletalk compatable NEC Silentwriter II Model 290 Laser printer. I used PhoneNet to network them together. I started working at a "Major PC manufacturer" (still around today) in 1995. I added a PC to my "collection" and added ethernet to the PC. The Pwr Mac 8500 had two or three PCi slots so I addded ethernet and a video card to it. I was able to to network the Power Mac and PC together over ethernet and the printer and other mac over apple talk together. If I remember correctly, the Windows Network adaptor properties had AppleTalk as a protocol that could be used along with TCP/IP. It's been about 25 years so it's not super clear in my memory.

[@Fifury161]

I remember seeing the bunny virus spread across a classroom full of Appletalk connected machines...

[@minty_Joe]

(From the movie "Hackers") Ellingson Mineral Computer Tech (Hal): There's a rabbit in the administration system! Eugene Belford: Send it a flu shot. Get me a systems display! Margo: Rabbit? Flu shot? Someone talk to me!

[@stefanmarinescu5086]

Curious about what "cheap" meant to Apple ecosistem....

[@BrianRRenfro]

In 1985 Apple money this means anything less than a 5 year old used car. At the time you had to choose between either buying a new power cable for your Apple II or a 1980 Ford Granada.

[@judewestburner]

You only needed to sell one lung

[@BrianRRenfro]

@@judewestburner One lung? That's only with an employee discount!

[@darkwinter6028]

In fairness, compared to today’s prices; ALL computers were very expensive... thousands of dollars in 1980’s money. Now you can get a quite capable iPad for $400 and a MacBook Air for under grand (in 2020 dollars, obviously). Were Apple’s prices higher than other platforms? Yes... but you did get a better product (at least until Linux & Windows NT came along; then it was debatable for a while until OS X came out). On the other hand; to make the automotive analogy, you don’t need to drive a Mercedes when you can get by with a Geo Metro (sometimes cheap has it’s own value that overcomes a product’s, well, cheapness).

[@chemmerling]

If you had a star topology for PhoneNET through Farallon then you'd be looking at about $7k per 30 computers. You could link each StarController to one another, or have a management interface that did the same. Our school district had one StarController, and a StarController EN located at our middle school. That ran our computer lab with 28 computers (Classic II's, LC II's and PowerMac 5400's). That was until we got the ethernet run to every room. Then the LC's got Farallon Ethernet cards.

[@psyolent.]

I couldn't not watch this video Adrian. In the mid 90's I used to support these kind of networks ; we were way ahead of our time we actually had Appletalk connected to a card in Novell Netware 3.12 server. It was awesome as!!!!!

[@psyolent.]

Just remembered. Was called Ethertalk.

[@DontDeleteMusic]

Awesome video. I picked up a Mac Classic recently. Opened it up to check the state and thankfully the battery hadn't exploded. Boots, but no sound. I'm sure I can fix that thanks to your videos. I was actually looking into networking options to connect to something more modern to transfer files to and from (floppy disks are becoming harder to find). Is there a way to connect a mac to something more modern for file transfers?

[@crowbarviking3890]

nice. and regarding what "stress" beepers caused, it is even more impressive to see networking like this.

[@bobblum5973]

Nice video and overview, Adrian. Now you just need to track down an old Cayman Systems GatorBox AppleTalk-to-Ethernet bridge. They supported LocalTalk cabling, plus had an Ethernet port, would allow both AppleTalk and TCP/IP protocols to cross between the two media types, and as I recall could act as a translation gateway between AppleTalk on the Macs and IP on an Ethernet host.

[@AureliusR]

Adrian, would LOVE to see a follow-up to this trying to get the higher speed working, as well as running programs across the network. Apple networking fascinates me, it's so different from PC networking.

[@minusvanbaalen]

The place I worked in in the '80s used AppleTalk to connect all Macs (15 or so?) to a file server (40 MB!) and a LaserWriter. It worked fine most of the time, but once in a while one of the plugs would come loose and then you'd have to run around for half a hour or so, wiggling all the connections until you found the culprit...

[@Nukle0n]

This seems miraculous compared to trying to set up a null modem over serial on a PC. Never been an Apple guy but I can very much appreciate how user friendly they made things, even if it came at the cost of being very proprietary.

[@thereallantesh]

I wonder if the sluggishness was due to the one computer running off a zip disc, or if that contributed at least a bit.

[@tomf3150]

Looks like the old networks we had at the univ. When the network crashed the admin had to open the network at each terminal, plug the terminator, identify the terminal, reconect, repeat. 16 terminals per class, 6 classes. Back in 2001-2002 at IBM France, the network was a token ring. It was quicly upgraded to ethernet.

[@gklinger]

I wonder if you could launch an application installed on another Mac? If you can, what happens if two people try to use the same application at the same time?

[@minty_Joe]

Yes you can, although there probably was some noticeable lag, depending on how big the program was. I don't seem to recall if there was any kind of alert that popped up if someone else was using the same app you wanted to use.

[@Nukle0n]

Looks like there was another sticker under the 99 cent sticker?

[@BigMacIIx]

The Asanté LocalTalk/10BASE-T bridge was a fantastic solution for interconnecting those old techs on a modern network, you should find one and connect those 68000 Macs on the Net ;-)

[@X-OR_]

I have 3 Vintage Apple Systems include a Mac SE/30, Beige G3 (Mac OS 9.02) tower and Apple IIgs on Apple Talk. The G3 Beige tower acts like a server and remote I/O via AppleTalk. I’m able to FTP files and transfer the files using AppleTalk, Also I use the G3 as a remote CD rom and Floppy Drive over Appletalk .

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

How does the IIgs interact with it? In GS/OS? Is there anything for ProDOS?

[@X-OR_]

@@adriansdigitalbasement The Apple IIgs has a Appetalk on/off control and chooser just like the Mac. In my case, I'm running version GSOS 6 with a Rom 3 Motherboard.

[@GeoffSeeley]

@19:25 this is one example why Apple ditched their crappy "multitasking" kernel in favor of the Mach kernel (and I commend them for doing so!)

[@joltdude]

Asante made an AppleTalk to Ethernet bridge box.... and it wasn’t big ... and on Ethernet enabled macs there was a way to do AppleTalk over Ethernet....

[@Jpetersson]

I like "blinky blinky" stuff!